jealousy, discouragement, and persistence

I recently had a first-time writer tell me about how discouraged he was that another first-time writer’s book was doing so much better than his.

Every writer has that feeling sooner or later – you’ll read a book or even just page through it and think “how the devil is that selling better than mine?!?”

Well, King Solomon had it right 3000 years ago. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance overtake them all. And that goes both ways, too. I guarantee that someone has read one of my books and thought “why is that selling better than mine?!?”

Sometimes they email to tell me that, at length.